


On A Series Of Circumstances

by arthur_pendragon



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: M/M, Ryoma/Horio, do NOT judge, you saw what i wrote
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-01
Updated: 2014-03-01
Packaged: 2018-01-14 04:32:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1252981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arthur_pendragon/pseuds/arthur_pendragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryoma and Horio's relationship through various themes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If this pair is not your cup of tea then I wonder why you're even seeing this.

1\. Introduction

"Hello, Echizen. I'm Horio Satoshi. A freshman and a first-year in the tennis club, like you." Horio sticks out a hand in a grand gesture and fully expects Echizen to fall to his feet in awe. He is promptly disappointed when Ryoma just raises a doubting eyebrow, hums, and walks away with a mild "Mada mada dane", adjusting his white Fila cap. Katsuo and Kachiro are anxiously looking at him, trying to figure out what just happened.

Horio, on his part, is just speechless.

He's not going to forget this anytime soon.

2\. Love

It isn't how Horio had expected his first love (confession) to be. No roses, no drenching rain, no violins in the background, playing a soft romantic tune. It's just lunch period being spent at the terrace, and Ryoma, lying there, is looking up at him with an amused smile on his face which makes Horio realize that he is about to screw it up in the next five minutes.

"I love you," he stammers, standing at Ryoma's feet. No experience here. His mouth isn't running off, for once. But his brain is. And his brain is telling him to turn around and walk out and pretend he's just bloody amazing and that nothing happened for the next twenty-five years, but it's all dashed down when Ryoma extends a hand and pulls him down, next to him, and kisses him softly, giving him a lazy smile after Horio's lips are all red and swollen and shiny.

3\. Light

There is no electricity being supplied to any house in Ryoma's neighborhood because of the bastards striking in the industry and so Rinko dusts off the scented candles she had bought a decade ago, and, strategically placing them all over the house, starts lighting them.

It's only when she opens Ryoma's door to offer him a fragrant, and lit, candle that she finds Ryoma furiously kissing Satoshi (that nice boy who's Ryoma's best friend… well, not best friend, not anymore). The yellow-orange light illuminates Ryoma's tongue entwining with Satoshi's quite nicely, and Rinko's just slightly upset Ryoma never told her about a boyfriend (it doesn't really matter if he's gay or not), as she sets the candle down on a level surface and closes the door.

Ryoma doesn't even notice.

4\. Dark

"Um, Ryoma, your mother just saw us…" Horio breathes out, paralyzed with shock. Ryoma looks annoyed at that, poking at Horio's arm, trying to make him move. "It doesn't matter," Ryoma whispers. "She didn't say anything, did she? Just walked out. Now stop being a statue and kiss me again."

Horio looks at him with those wide, innocent eyes of his, and says, "But what if you get in trouble because of me? I mean, she wouldn't really want her son to be with a boy, much less kissing him in the dark."

Ryoma feels a rush of affection he's never felt for anyone before, and says, "You talk too much." He stands up, and going over to the candle, blows it out.

5\. Seeking Solace

Ryoma's in tears, and Horio doesn't know what to do. He stands there, awkwardly, watching tears roll down Ryoma's face and feeling knives paring the edges of his heart. It's rare, him dumbstruck like this.

"Don't get so torn up over a tennis match," he offers weakly, but Ryoma looks up with a disgusted frown and Horio doesn't really like the way he feels about two inches tall right now.

"It was my life out there," Ryoma gasps raggedly. "I gave it my everything for the first fucking time in my life and I lost." Horio just looks at him, desperately wishing he could help, but then Ryoma effectively cuts through him. "What would you know, anyway; you just watch like a loser from the sidelines." He gets up from the bench and walks away.

Horio wonders who will comfort him.

6\. Break Away

It's like their relationship was bound to end. Horio overcompensates for his loss by making a regular fool out of himself at the tennis courts. People laugh at him and he doesn't care; but he sees Ryoma smirking at him amongst everyone else and somehow Horio's eyes fill with tears. Ryoma's smirk falters, and he turns away.

You don't end a relationship by just pretending he's not alive the next day.

But then, as Ryoma leaves for America, Horio thinks maybe Ryoma wanted to spare him the extra grief.

He misses the long, hard look Ryoma gives the back of his head as he tries to leave with at least a shred of his dignity.

7\. Heaven

 _Angels,_  is Ryoma's first thought when he wakes up.  _This is heaven._

No, he's not dead, and the white he's seeing is simply a blanket and the velvet touches are Horio's hands. Ryoma sighs and reaches out to entwine their fingers together, and Horio says, "Maybe next time you'll listen carefully to what I'm saying and not goad Akutsu into getting violent anymore."

Ryoma nods, ignoring the stab of pain at the back of his neck. Anything to keep Horio's hands where they are. One holding his own, and the other stroking his forehead in uncharacteristic consideration.

8\. Innocence

Ryoma can't get over the sheer surprise he gets every day when he talks to Horio. How can someone be so… unaware?

Horio brags about all the times he's gone biking with his cousin Junpei, and the bolt-in-the-blue day when Tezuka-buchou ("my hero"—Ryoma hadn't yet made that big an impression on Horio) taught him the literal basics of tennis.

Ryoma listens, because he's out looking for a laugh after a bleak and tiring practice and Horio's surroundings are the place to begin with; then he realizes that Horio blindly trusts everyone to listen. As Horio goes on about his extensive knowledge about tennis, Ryoma watches and understands that Horio does not know anything about the dark side of the allegorical coin.

9\. Drive

Momo takes every willing regular out for a ride in his sister's brand new car, and Ryoma tags along because he has nothing better to do. As Eiji glues himself to Ryoma, the short tennis prodigy looks out of the window. Kaidoh is hissing at every turn Momo manages to fuck up, and Oishi has the first-aid box ready in his hands.

Ryoma's eyes fall on a boy and a lady walking on the pedestrian walkway. It's Horio. Chatting unstoppably with his mother, who looks exhausted and desperate, but also loving and kind and patient. Ryoma spots things a mile away.

A small smile forms on his face as he looks at Horio until he can't anymore.

10\. Breathe Again

Ryoma's life is empty. Suffocating. Tennis commands his waking hours and nightmares preside over his nights. He wakes up screaming everyday, dreaming about things he can't remember when he opens his tear-filled eyes.

Rinko takes him to therapists who promised to do something about these nightmares, because Ryoma just doesn't look all that pretty with purple bags under his eyes and too-pale skin.

Somehow, it all stops the day Horio slept over. Ryoma's very picky in his choice of friends, and Horio's probably the second or third person to see the inside of his bedroom.

In the middle of the night, Horio wakes up to see Ryoma's face looming over him. There are tears on his cheek, and Horio is worried and wide-awake, immediately. "What's wrong?" he asks, sitting up. Ryoma mumbles, "Nightmare," and nudges Horio aside on his bed. Horio moves, confused about Ryoma's actions. But not so confused when Ryoma curls himself around him and nods off.

He didn't have a nightmare ever again.

11\. Memory

Horio doesn't seem to remember Ryoma's existence after Ryoma comes back from America, and maybe Ryoma really fucked up in trying to get a clean break from him. He keeps staring at Horio who seems abso _fucking_ lutely fine without him, until Oishi lays a soft hand on Ryoma's shoulder and steers him away.

Horio's eyes are always full of tears; because there is no way that he can forgive Ryoma.

But he does, at least when Ryoma confronts him about it and asks him for forgiveness. He doesn't know if he can trust Ryoma again or not. But he gives him a second chance, and allows all his memories of Ryoma to return.

12\. Insanity

"You are  _crazy_  if you think this will work," Horio hisses at Ryoma, who just leans forward and licks Horio's lips dirtily.

"Well, I guess I am," Ryoma drawls. "Mada mada dane."

Horio hooks an arm around Ryoma's neck, comes so close to Ryoma that he, in a complete out-of-focus moment, can see their eyelashes entwining. Then they're kissing, right in front of court A, right in front of the regulars and Coach Ryuzaki and Tomoka and Sakuno.

Tezuka steps up to the two, and Horio involuntarily flinches. "On behalf of all of the spectators to your little… PDA, please… get a room."

Ryoma breaks away from the kiss and gives out a laugh, which makes Horio smile so brightly that Ryoma kisses his forehead and drags him away. It's not really their fault if all of Ryoma's fans go nuts with jealousy and despair the next day.

13\. Misfortune

So Horio fails his English test. He completely blames it on Ryoma who wouldn't stay away from Horio's lips (does he have a fetish or something?) for even a minute, not allowing him to remember all the different figures of speech and stuff that he just  _knew_  would come in the test tomorrow.

He doesn't know whether it is bad or good luck that Ryoma's just as exemplary in English as Horio is in bragging.

He just wants to know whether Ryoma can keep his hands and tongue away from him while tutoring him.

14\. Smile

It was Horio's smile that first got Ryoma's attention. Horio doesn't really smile, just keeps talking in that irritating way of his that makes people want to avoid him so badly. So when Horio comes up to him and introduces himself with a smile that lights up Ryoma's day, he can't complain.

He watches Horio's smile freeze up when he nonchalantly walks away, and smiles a smile of his own.

15\. Silence

"Hello?"

No reply. Horio hangs up, and redials. "Ryoma, are you there?"

He hears a vague "don't call me that" before it's cut off and there's nothing he can hear anymore. Horio speaks into the phone. "Are you playing a prank on me?"

Faint smirks. Horio catches on. He hangs up again, but doesn't redial. After ten minutes the phone rings and Horio picks it up, but doesn't say anything.

"Hello? Satoshi?"

Silence. Horio gives out a smirk of his own as Ryoma becomes slightly pissy. "Stop that. Stop ignoring me."

Horio sits back and lets Ryoma talk.

16\. Questioning

Ryoma's not someone to feel insecure about anything. But even he does a double take when he sees Horio holding hands with a girl their age, and smiling the smile he gives—gave—only Ryoma. He wants to believe it's a sister. Or a cousin. Or someone related to him or already taken.

He doesn't know how to stalk people, but he does a pretty good job of following Horio around.

So when Horio goes still when Ryoma comes up to him after he drops the girl off at her house, he completely deserves all that's coming to him.

"Who was that?" Ryoma asks softly; coldly. Horio is speechless, and he can't move. Ryoma can't stop the hurt from filtering through his next question.

" _Why did you kiss her?_ "

17\. Blood

Ryoma isn't used to wearing long sleeved shirts. He always gets hot and sweaty in those. But he has no choice because if Tezuka saw the cuts, he would be banned from tennis practice until they healed.

Or maybe he's going to get banned, anyway. He can't hold up a racquet; it hurts too badly.

It hadn't hurt when he had carved lines into his skin, though. Why now?

Apparently he's moved his hand too much for the day, because he can see red stains on the inside of his sleeves, soaking through. He runs away from the courts, and doesn't see Horio's heartbroken glance at him from behind the chain-link fence.

18\. Rainbow

Horio always waits around for the rain to end, because he wants to see the rainbow. Every time. He does this every time.

One day Ryoma watches it with him, and Horio decides he'd rather look at Ryoma looking at the rainbow.

19\. Gray

When you mix black with white, you get gray. Gray is a dull color, Ryoma thinks. No character of its own. He really hates it when Nanako has to bully him into a gray shirt and black blazer— _blazer,_ for Kami-sama's sake—for the winter formal.

It's raining when he gets to the school, and even the clouds are gray. Ryoma inwardly curses his luck.

The tennis regulars are huddled in a corner of the gym, and Ryoma joins them, slightly drenched. Momo spots him and pulls him into a hug. "Hey, Ryoma," he says easily, "nice shirt."

Ryoma accidentally on purpose steps on his foot, because he knows Momo's just making fun of him. But he doesn't really know what to do or believe when Horio comes up to him and says, "That's a nice shirt. I like the color gray. It makes me think of my cousin's eyes. But her eyes are more of silver, if you get what I mean. You know, you wouldn't look half-bad if you had gray eyes. It's my favorite color, you know. I have many gray t-shirts."

Ryoma just takes his hand and puts it on his chest, right over his heart. Horio blushes slightly, feeling the beat.

"Maybe I like gray," Ryoma mumbles.

20\. Fortitude

He's going to win all of the Grand Slams. He wants to. And even Aerosmith says  _dream on, dream until your dreams come true._

He just doesn't know how he'll get the strength to do it without Horio there.

He kneels by the grave and saturates the ground with his tears, and wishes Horio was still alive to fill Ryoma's empty heart with his never-ending stream of words and smiles.

21\. Vacation

"Take a break, now. We've worked hard to win the Nationals. And I swear I'm exhausted," Oishi says, smiling down at all the regulars. Tezuka is sorely missed, but no one says a word.

Ryoma wants to leave Japan, at least temporarily. Now all that's left is prodding Horio into coming, too, but he knows Horio is a homebody.

So he just stays over at Horio's house and pretends it's a resort someplace unknown. Horio's willing enough to play along, but then it's his bed they use, and he knows they can't shift his bed to the Bahamas.

22\. Mother Nature

Ryoma hates greenery. The type where his clothes get ripped and torn and dirty and useless because he doesn't have much of a green thumb.

But when Horio shows him a blooming rosebud with an even more beautiful smile on his face, Ryoma tries to rethink his decision to hate nature.

He didn't know Horio had Sakura trees growing in his backyard. He stands under them and lets the petals caress him and remind him of Satoshi.

23\. Cat

Horio doesn't understand Ryoma's obsession with Karupin.

And then he finds out he's allergic to cats when Ryoma offers a wiggling Karupin to him.

Once he gets over the sneezing and coughing and teary eyes and snot-filled nose, he tells Ryoma to keep Karupin away from him. Ryoma's not going to listen, or even shoo Karupin away. Horio threatens him with some cousin who's had two years of experience in something related to cats (that's what he tells Ryoma; actually, cousin Haruko is a zoologist), and so Ryoma hastily pushes Karupin out of the room.

24\. No Time

The Nationals are coming up. Immediately after the event, Ryoma is moving back to America.

It's exceedingly painful. In the way Horio can lick at his wounds all he wants but they won't stop bleeding. He is running out of time, and he has no idea when he'll tell Ryoma about his true feelings towards him. All this time, Ryoma has only perceived him as an annoying outsider, a braggart with free time on his hands—oh, the irony.

"Can I talk to you alone, Ryoma-kun?"

"Hm," Ryoma says, uncaring. He walks over to a secluded spot where no one can see them. Not even Fuji. Horio follows, and shies away somewhat when Ryoma looks at him. "What did you want to say? I've got practice, and the Nationals are coming, and I have to go home and pack, too. Be quick. Mada mada dane."

Horio can't stop his eyes from filling up at the mention of those things, and Ryoma's eyes widen. "Are you okay?"

Horio just bites his lip in an effort to stop the tears from actually falling, because this is his first love he's giving up. The kind of love that he will never find anywhere else. "Don't go," he chokes out. He is too selfish, and it's no use, the moment for holding him back passed a long while ago. "I love you. Don't leave me."

Ryoma places a hand on his neck, just underneath his jaw. Horio looks up. Ryoma leans in and kisses him gently touching his lips with his mouth. His tongue slips out to brush against Horio's bottom lip and Horio draws in a breath, mouth opening in shock. And then Ryoma's tongue is licking at Horio's, and they're kissing the way Horio's never kissed anyone before.

He thinks he's dreaming, but he sees tears in Ryoma's eyes as well as they pull away and Ryoma hugs him tightly.

25\. Trouble Lurking

"Fuji and Momo are here," Ryoma whispers to Horio. "Pretend I'm tutoring you in English. Don't even mention the word  _date_  in front of them, or else—"

"I know," Horio says earnestly. Then as Fuji and Momo come nearer, he says in English, "I'd like some coffee. Ryoma, would you order some coffee for me, please?"

Momo looks awestruck, as he sits at the next table. Ryoma smirks to himself. "Of course," he replies, in that American accent that Horio gets so bothered about. He gets the attention of a waitress and does what Horio asked him to do.

As Horio gets a coffee cream moustache, Ryoma smiles affectionately, and then goes still as Fuji coughs from beside him. "We know, O-chibi," he says with a smile.

"We won't tell anyone." Momo orders a cheeseburger for himself, and then digs into it. Ryoma relaxes, and his hand reaches out to touch Horio's.


	2. Chapter 2

26\. Tears

Ryoma doesn't cry. His eyes are physically unable to tear up. Period.

It doesn't explain why Ryoma is curled up into a ball and rocking himself inside the tennis equipment storage room. Horio panics, seeing someone he knows as cold and hard so shaken up, on the floor. He rushes over to Ryoma and sits down clumsily beside him, laying a hesitant hand on his shoulder. Ryoma raises his head and looks at Horio from red-rimmed eyes.

In an extremely inappropriate moment, Horio realizes he loves Ryoma's tear-soaked eyelashes and his swollen, bloodshot eyes and his trembling mouth. Without saying anything, he raises a thumb and softly drags it along the eyelashes of Ryoma's left eye. It comes away wet, and Ryoma pushes him to the ground and covers his mouth with his own with a choked twisted sound, like he was giving him everything broken in him.

Later Horio finds out Ryoma was crying because he had been  _this_  close to giving up on the institution of love.

It's okay. He can mend his heart.

27\. Foreign

The day Ryoma shows up at Seigaku, whispers of the foreigner in Horio's class sweep through the school and everyone and their best friend find excuses to walk through the corridor where the class is. Ryoma, however, doesn't pay any attention, just flips through a Japanese magazine the guy beside him offered. (It's boring. He doesn't know who these people are, and why they qualify as celebrities, when all they have in them is three tons of botox and double the makeup.)

Horio is one of the many that keep staring at the boy, and the times he's turned around to 'search for his lost book' have crossed twenty.

Then a note is passed around the class to him, and he opens it to see the words

_Stop staring. Mada mada dane. Ryoma._

He blushes, but can't help turning around again—pulling out a stray pen from his bag for good measure—and as his eyes flit to the boy with the cold demeanor, he sees that that boy's smirking slightly at him. He turns back and doesn't look at Ryoma for the rest of the class.

28\. Sorrow

"Sorry doesn't cut it anymore, Satoshi."

"I'm really sorry—she asked me out, Ryoma, and no one's done that to me, especially not a girl—" Horio cuts himself off in a terrified choke. Ryoma's face goes blank— _not his eyes not his eyes why is he so hurt this was a joke to him this was just a joke he wasn't serious—_ and he says, "So you want a girl. Not me."

"That's not what I meant—" Horio stutters. Fucking up has always been what's he's been good at. That, and lying.

Ryoma closes his fists in Horio's hair and, instead of the rough teeth-tongue-breathing-biting Horio expects, it's the gentlest and most chaste kiss he's ever received.

"My lips are just as soft as hers," Ryoma mutters. Then, as the tip of his tongue shows and he licks a wet trail from one corner of Horio's lips to the other, he says, "And my tongue is no different from hers.

"What  _is_  different," he continues, pushing him up against the very wall of the house of the girl Horio kissed two minutes ago, "is that I have  _this._ " He presses all of himself against Horio, who lets out a gasp. "So, I'm the one who's sorry. I don't have long hair or bow-shaped lips or all that—but I could have given you the world."

He softly bites at Horio's neck, and then backs away, covering his face with his favorite white Fila cap. Horio can't say anything.

He breaks up with the girl immediately, but the damage has been done, and Ryoma is gone forever.

29\. Happiness

Ryoma secretly likes to make people happy. It goes against his snark, his arrogance, his curt words, and everything he believes in. Doesn't matter.

He doesn't like it when people know it's him.

"I wasn't the one who gave you that racquet, okay, Satoshi. Mada mada dane."

Horio smiles, and waving away the topic, starts talking about how much he loves the person who sent him this, and how he has so many years of experience in giving people gifts. He sees the not-so-hidden smile on Ryoma's face and it's all worth it.

30\. Under The Rain

Horio's already confessed. Four times. He thinks of rounding it up with a down-on-his-knees moment in the rain. He patiently waits for monsoon to haul itself over the town, and then is grateful that it starts to rain just when tennis practice ends. Someone up there likes him. Even though he's an extreme exaggerator and all.

As they turn the corner to Ryoma's house, Ryoma suddenly reaches for Horio's hand. They're drenched and Horio's hand probably feels like rubber, but then Ryoma pulls him into a hug and whispers, "I love you, Satoshi." He breathes hotly against Horio's ear and Horio shudders at the cold rain—hot breath mix.

Damn it. His moment was stolen. But Horio doesn't care. He kisses Ryoma in the rain, and that's a confession in itself.

31\. Flowers

The flowers that Horio gave Ryoma as one of his steps to get Ryoma back end up in the trash bin, not ten minutes after he left them outside Ryoma's locker with a note of apology. The note was in pieces at the door of the locker room, and Horio feels his heart stutter in a pain that he's felt for the first time in his life. He's going to feel like this for the next year, and there's nothing and no one except Ryoma who could take the pain away, but the person who caused it can't take it away.

Horio knows he's back to being the unimportant-loser-braggart-novice in Ryoma's life. He just didn't think he would matter so less to Ryoma after everything. But he sends another bunch of flowers to Ryoma's home the next day, and when he sees them in a vase by Ryoma's window, he's slightly happy, even though he knows it's Ryoma's mother who put them there, not him.

32\. Night

It's Ryoma who drags Horio along to see the night sky in the barren field at the edge of town. Not the other way around.

So Ryoma's just as much of a sap as Horio is. They kiss at the exact moment a shooting star flashes across the sky, and what a fucking cliché but hey. They're both saps.

33\. Expectations

The world expects a lot from future generations. Ryoma's dad doesn't really want him to be the successful bastard that Ryoma's going to become, because who knows, maybe even Ryoma might meet the most beautiful woman in the world and then marry her, throwing away all chances of further fame.

But Tezuka expects him to make a name for himself, make an irremovable mark on the history books of the world.

The team expects him to lift the Nationals trophy for them.

Horio expects himself to be left the moment Ryoma graduates from Seigaku.

Ryoma, on the other hand, expects Horio to be his lover for life.

Expectations can either be fulfilled or let down. Ryoma meets the girl he knows is meant for him, and Horio knows he has no hope now, but then Ryoma says "You're the guy for me, Satoshi" and walks back into his life. He is happy.

34\. Stars

Horio gets hit with a stray tennis ball and blacks out.

When he wakes up, he sees Ryoma Echizen's worried-concerned face hovering in front of him. Ryoma. The boy he can't stop staring at in class. He's in the tennis club?

"Dream?" Horio hears himself mutter. The face in front of him smiles. Horio hears other people muttering around him, but he doesn't care about those nondescript people. They don't like him, anyway. Right back at you, bitches.

He wants to take the risk, but stops himself. But then lets go; it's a dream. What's the most that'll happen? He'll wake up.

So he raises himself and kisses dream-Ryoma.

And when he thuds back to the ground and hears people gasp and pain explode on the back of his head, he realizes dream-Ryoma is actually real-Ryoma, the boy he just kissed. Not a dream.

Now he's seeing stars. He faints again.

When he wakes up he's in the infirmary and Ryoma's sitting beside him. "You made me see stars," Horio gasps. Ryoma smirks. "Let me give you some more," he says, and then he's kissing Horio again.

35\. Hold My Hand

Ryoma's not a touchy-feely person. He doesn't feel the urge to stick to the nearest person around. So, naturally, it feels a bit—well, more than a bit—uncomfortable that he wants to hold Horio Satoshi's hand.

He's watching Horio brag about the latest 'adventure' he had, and he's also looking at the way Horio keeps fisting his hands. Ryoma wants to run his fingers over the tendons and veins and soft skin.

Horio wipes away some sweat on his forehead with a hand. Ryoma wants to feel digusted, but he can't help how he wants to hold Horio's hand even more and feel the sweat  _Horio's sweat_  clinging to both their skins. It doesn't help when Horio comes and places a hand on Ryoma's shoulder. "It'll be okay, Echizen. I'll tell you about my adventure later."

Ryoma can only say, "Get your hand off me. Mada mada dane," and walk away feeling the urge to hold Horio's hand twist his heart something bad.

36\. Precious Treasure

For Horio's birthday, they organize a mock treasure hunt. Leave notes hidden in places with inventive clues to the next destination, and Horio with a too-big party hat on his face and a happy smile on his face walks around the park, ridiculously happy at finding the next slip of white paper.

He isn't able to look at the gleeful grin on Tomoka's face as he lifts the lid of the 'treasure chest' and finds Ryoma smirking up at him.

37\. Eyes

Horio loves Ryoma's eyes. He is obsessed with them.

His long eyelashes. The beautiful golden irises. The pupils dilated with desire. Horio waxes poetic in these moments, the moments where Horio is the only one Ryoma looks at, the only thing in Ryoma's eyes' line of sight.

Sometimes he feels he was blind before he saw Ryoma's eyes and everything came back to him.

38\. Abandoned

The moment his family finds out Horio's gay, they kick him out. Literally push him out of the house with a small bag containing only enough clothes to last two days, and then slam the door in his face.

Ryoma won't stop killing himself for it.

Then one day he does, because he's dead.  _Will you forgive me for ruining your life, Horio?_ _  
_

39\. Dreams

Horio has nightmares, too.

Nightmares in which Ryoma kisses him and then makes Horio taste the poison he took to kill himself, because he ruined Horio's life by accepting the love confession. "You killed me, Satoshi."

You killed me and I'll always love you and be with you forever and you killed me  _you killed me_.

Horio follows Ryoma's footsteps a year after.

40\. Rated

It's the first time both Ryoma and Horio have ever watched an R rated movie, so they've even closed the door and locked it to be sure no one butts in and catches them. Horio's fidgeting nervously, biting his lip, and Ryoma's just calm, watching Horio bite his lip and make it shiny and make it absolutely kissable.

They really get into the movie, the plot, just as a sex scene comes in.

Horio goes stock-still, hearing the girl's sighs and moans and the guy's words slipping dirtily out of his mouth like golden oil.

Ryoma pauses the movie.

Horio doesn't really move. He can't. Then Ryoma kisses him and they're emulating what just happened on the screen without all the cheesy sounds and words  _and the girl_ and Horio has never felt the way Ryoma makes him feel and then oblivion Ryoma white bliss  _yeah_.

41\. Teamwork

Tezuka's pairing up the regulars for a three-legged race to improve co-ordination, and Ryoma's left out. Fortunately Tezuka sees Horio drinking from the water taps and calls him over. Ryoma just gives Horio a cold glance of contempt and bends down to attach his left and Horio's right ankles together.

They find out soon enough that's it's near impossible to run like this with their torsos leaning away from each other like their heads are opposite poles of a magnet (not to mention the others are laughing at them), so Ryoma reluctantly wraps his left arm around Horio's shoulders, and then they're running perfectly and overtaking the others. Horio wants this run to last forever, but they push through the winner's ribbon and then Ryoma's bending down again to untie them.

Horio draws his ankle away before Ryoma completes the untying, and he falls over. Ryoma falls over too, and they're lying on the tennis court, and Ryoma is pissed at Horio, who's apologizing.

"You know what, forget it." Ryoma tries to undo the last knot on the laces wound around their ankles, and succeeds, and then he's walking away with a "mada mada dane" lingering on his lips.

42\. Standing Still

The day they win the Nationals, Ryoma's sure that he loves Horio. He can see, out of the corner of his eyes, the team huddling together, some of them crying, some laughing, some just smiling. He's standing a few feet away, and he's scanning the crowd for a pair of big brown eyes. He finds many, but none of them belong to the person he wants to share his happiness with.

And then he finds him.

Horio's not the only one standing, but he's the only one who's not moving. He's staring at Ryoma, and Ryoma stares back.

They just stand there, watching each other while the world roars around them.

43\. Dying

"I've been diagnosed with cancer."

Horio remembers the day very clearly. Remembers the way Ryoma's lips moves to say the word 'diagnosed' and the word 'cancer'.

Also the word 'terminal', said a few hours later.

Ryoma holds Horio's hand for the last time a month later, and Horio knows he's slipping away but he doesn't know how to catch him. It's like there's always been something dying around them. Horio's father died. Ryoma's cousin died. Now Ryoma himself is dying, and Horio can't talk anymore.

44\. Two Roads

Ryoma rarely reads anything. The most he's read is an autobiography of a tennis player (he doesn't remember the name, the book wasn't as interesting as he'd thought), but one day he chances upon some poetry his mother left lying around, and he has absolutely nothing to do, so he picks up the book.

He finishes it in four hours, too much for just a book of poetry, but he's reading a particular piece over and over and over.

_I shall be telling this with a sigh / Somewhere ages and ages hence / Two roads diverged in a wood, and I- / I took the one less travelled by, / And that has made all the difference._

He wishes he could relate to it so he could love it more but he can't think of anything.

But then Horio phones him and tells him that he got through to Tokyo University, so Ryoma makes a decision on the spot and hopes that years later he can finally say that leaving a promising career in tennis to pursue a degree in Japanese literature in T University was worth it. For Horio. And then he hopes that he can say that the poem inspired him. Robert Frost is a fucking  _genius_.

45\. Illusion

He's falling into a bottomless pit and he can feel the air rushing up around him and he can't feel any ground, but then he blinks and he's talking to Ryoma and there's piano music floating around him and he wants to wave at the imaginary notes and break them up because they're denoting love ballads and Horio hates love ballads. Ryoma's looking at him strangely because it's the middle of the day and what the hell is Horio saying about it being dark, turn on the lights.

Horio wakes up and he's in Narnia, some land he read about in a fantasy book, and Ryoma's the king Edmund, staring cruelly and coldly down at him and dealing out a death sentence to him. Then he wakes up again and he's covered in sweat and blood because he cut his wrists just a moment ago and he should be dead but he's not because there's no blood flowing out the cuts.

There's no blood.

Horio screams and then everything clears and the magician winks at him. Ryoma's beside him holding his hand and he sighs shakily, and tries to forget what happened and concentrates on the magic show Tomoka pushed them into going to.

46\. Family

They're from different worlds. One's family is intolerant of homosexuality, and the other's family is completely fine with it, going as far as to joke about it and make him absolutely comfortable. One's family kicked him out, and the other pulls him in.

But family's family, Horio learns as his brother shows up at Ryoma's door, and breaks down in tears, sorry for everything. Then his father and mother come and sit down to talk. They leave as the discussion doesn't end all that fruitfully, but you have to love family. Ryoma's family is now his own, so yeah.

47\. Creation

Horio wrote a short story about a prodigy who comes to a school his father used to go to, and makes a place for himself on the tennis team, and leaves everyone shellshocked. It's clear to Ryoma that this is about him (although he's a bit embarrassed about the prodigy part-he's not that vain) except for the part where the prodigy (he cringes) is in love with the narrator.

Horio won the first prize in the original story competiton (even if it's not so original, but the teachers don't know who "Kazuki" is in real life) held in the school for that, and Ryoma is a bit proud, seeing as the story features him. He writes a letter to Horio the day Horio wins, and it's not what a letter should be, because Ryoma sucks at communication, period, but Horio reads the jumble of kanji and hiragana anyway, and smiles as he realizes Ryoma wrote a sequel (however badly) to his own story. He writes a reply with the third part, and the love story Horio started in his imagination turns real as Ryoma replies to him again, but not with a fourth part. Horio is happily surprised to read the roughly expressed feelings in the letter.

_Have a tennis match with me, and if I win, you're mine._

48\. Childhood

Ryoma tells Horio about his childhood in the US, and Horio wants to see the house they lived in, and the school he went to, and especially the girls who said they liked him. Ryoma's not so sure about the last request, but they book a flight to the United States the next month, anyway.

Horio sees the tennis court where Ryoma won his first Junior Tennis tournament, and he smiles at Ryoma, because Ryoma was happy here, in the US.

"Is Japan good enough for you?"

"Mada mada dane," Ryoma sighs, walking away from the court, because memories of his childhood bring smiles to his face he can't let anyone see, but Horio's already seen them.

49\. Stripes

Ryoma despises patterns of any kind, but he admits that Horio looks good in stripes. But then he grows tired of them, too, as he starts seeing stripes everywhere-rabid fangirls of his wearing them to please him.

So Horio one day shows up at his house and shows him the striped boxers he bought, and Ryoma collapses in spontaneous laughter. But then he loves those boxers, so Horio buys another pair for him as a birthday gift, and says, "Now we're the Boxer Brothers Striped."

50\. Breaking The Rules

Seishun Gakuen has many rules. One of them being: Do not skip class at any cost. Another: No public displays of affection on the school campus.

Ryoma hates rules, so he drags Horio up to the terrace after homeroom and sits there with him, occasionally kissing him, licking Horio's lips, holding hands. He's a bit disappointed that no one catches them, so he does it the next day and the day after that, too. Nothing happens, so he gives up and starts attending class again.

The teachers jump on him, and a bit of his disappointment is washed away. So he tries the PDA rule-breaking in the tennis courts, but nothing happens. He smirks.

The teachers are left gaping after Ryoma practically abuses Horio's mouth in front of the staff room.


	3. Chapter 3

51\. Sport

Ryoma's life is tennis. He lives, eats, sleeps, drinks, walks around tennis. Always thinks about it. It isn't like tennis is his life, but it is.

If he could, he'd wish for inexhaustible stamina for himself and one other amazing tennis player so both could play tennis forever, but then, inexhaustible stamina's like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. (There isn't any. People search for it, work towards it, but there isn't any.)

Horio comes to him on his last day in Seigaku (Japan) and tells him he loves him, and all Ryoma can think is  _you're too late._

But even so, he kisses Horio as a goodbye gesture but neither of them's ready to pull away just yet so they keep touching the other's lips and tongues and noses and foreheads and hands till they can't anymore.

In the US, he doesn't go near a tennis court or its locker room till a year.

52\. Deep In Thought

Ryoma walks toward the water taps to cool his head. He takes off his cap and shakes his head roughly, freeing his hair from the hat-head condition. He gets to the taps and soaks his hair, sighing softly. He wraps a towel around his head, the towel he'd taken from the locker room, and turns around.

He'd thought he was alone, but Horio's sitting there, thinking.  _Thinking._

Ryoma is eternally thankful that the blood doesn't rush to his cheeks because it's not used to being needed there. He wants to say  _mada mada dane_  but the trance Horio seems to be in is captivating. He stands there, staring at Horio.

Later Horio tells him he looks beautiful without his cap, but Ryoma (who still doesn't blush) won't stop wearing it, anyway.

53\. Keeping A Secret

Tomoka's never been good with secrets. She's a gossipmonger at heart, and she knows she physically can't hold a secret in for more than two days. Also, if she suspects something's up, she won't stop snooping until she gets the whole thing.

Ryoma knew it was all going to be fucked up the moment Osakada followed Horio to Ryoma's home.

They extracted all sorts of promises and oaths and vows of secrecy from her, but she doesn't even trust herself. Ryoma begrudgingly allows her to tell Sakuno, and as if the shocked, hurt, devastated look on the girl's face isn't enough, Tomoka finds it suitable to tell one more person about it, and one more, and then one more, until the whole school knows that Horio and Ryoma are  _boyfriends._

Momo can't stop laughing about the whole thing.

54\. Tower

_I'm going to fall._

Horio leans over the fourth-floor railing of the ancient tower they're visiting on a school trip, and thinks that he wants an accident to happen, right there.

Ryoma comes up beside him and says, "If you're going to fall, you'd better catch my hand and pull me down with you."

Horio looks at Ryoma who's smiling the ghost of a smile and says, "I'd rather not. I think I'll stay up here with you and watch the tiny people move around on the ground."

"How do you think it'd look if we were watching a tennis match from up here?"

"Two ants throwing a piece of sugar around."

Ryoma laughs, and it's the most beautiful sound Horio's heard in a while.

"Mada mada dane," Ryoma says, and they go higher up the tower with the rest of the class and the two teachers, touching hands.

55\. Waiting

Ryoma's not punctual. Horio is the most punctual person in the school, besides Tezuka and Oishi and some of the teachers.

"I'll be there at five," Ryoma says. He means five-twenty, but Horio turns up at the lake at five on the dot.

At five-five, he calls Ryoma. "I thought you said-"

"Just a couple minutes, I'm pulling my clothes on. Do you want to be here and take them off instead?"

"No, thanks. I'd rather drown in the lake."

Ryoma doesn't say anything. Horio knows he just insulted him badly.

"OK. Go drown in the lake, then. Mada mada dane." A click, and Horio understands that Ryoma just said he's not coming anymore.

He still sits there, and a small grin appears on his face when, at five-thirty, Ryoma comes and sits beside him.

"Fuck you."

Horio smiles wider.

56\. Danger Ahead

"I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die," Horio cries out.

"It's just a stupid rollercoaster, Satoshi, calm down."

"It's gonna turn upside-down, it's turning upside-down it's-" Horio wants to gag but something is holding everything in.

"Wimp. Mada mada dane."

The name of the rollercoaster and the symbol had been enough to put Horio off, but of course, Ryoma was gleefully dragging him along. Apparently the words Danger Ahead and the skull with the crossed bones didn't scare him all that much. They look at the photos later and laugh, but Horio's still scared out of his mind.

57\. Sacrifice

Horio knew what he was getting into, what with Ryoma being a world-famous tennis player with a very recent break-up with singing superstar Ryuzaki Sakuno (he wonders what people would say if he said he'd known them since Junior High, and that their supposed relationship was a farce from the start) but with everyone abandoning Ryoma because of it, he didn't know if he really wanted this for himself and for Ryoma.

Ryoma came home with a tired smirk on his face and tears threatening to fall from his eyes, and Horio decides he's going to leave Ryoma, too, just like everyone else.

That's not what Ryoma wants, as he curls around Horio at night and whispers love confessions into his ear and kisses the soft skin where his neck and shoulder meet. His hands roam over Horio's body and Horio pretends the wetness everywhere is sweat.

It's like watching a train wreck, watching Ryoma come home from yet another person who abandons him because of who he is and who he is with.

Horio packs his bag the moment Ryoma leaves for Wimbledon, and doesn't pick up the phone anymore.

58\. Kick In The Head

Horio likes the song 'Ain't That A Kick In The Head?' The Dean Martin version, for Ocean's Eleven (1960. He likes old movies. Really old movies). He mouths the words because he can't speak English all that well, and when Ryoma finds Horio mouthing 'him' in place of 'her' his face lights up and they kiss slowly, arms around each other and swaying to the beat, pressing against each other.

59\. No Way Out

Fuji locks the doors from the outside, and makes sure the windows are latched, too, before going to a vantage point from where he can see Ryoma and Horio inside the locker room.

He's always found the pair interesting; because they only have one thing in common, tennis, and otherwise, they're from entirely different worlds. How can they survive with each other?

So he takes photos, and he learns from them, and one where Horio is laughing while Ryoma pounds on the door is especially dear to him, so he gives it to a scowling Ryoma and keeps the rest for possible future blackmail.

60\. Rejection

There are three things going through Horio's mind at the moment, and all three are related to Ryoma.

Ryoma's smirk.

Ryoma's cold eyes.

Ryoma's voice saying  _you have to be kidding me. You?_

It was just a confession. "I love you. Please be mine." Then it turned into something of a public spectacle, and Horio isn't sure if he wants to go out of his room for the next two years.

But he goes to school, anyway, and everything's  _normal._  No one's staring or pointing and laughing, and Horio ducks into class, avoids the eye of anyone who might be looking at him, and sits just as the teacher enters. They all say the prayer and start homeroom. The teacher gives Horio the duty of cleaning the class after school for the week. Horio accepts and opens his notebook, the one he uses to take notes in every class. There's a piece of paper placed in it, and it's blank. Horio decides to write something on it.

Ryoma is looking at Horio, and then hurriedly averts his eyes when Horio turns around and places a note on his desk without looking up. Ryoma reaches for the note and opens it to find a word written on the top left corner (Horio is obviously expecting a reply, seeing all the space he left):  _Why?_

He picks up a pen and begins to write.  _You could never be mine. You're too flawed. Annoying and talkative and mediocre at tennis. Why would I want anything to do with you? Don't reply, I'll only tear it up without reading it._

He gives it back and blatantly makes sure that their fingers don't touch.

Horio reads it and wants to cry. His heart twists itself into a knot and there's this choking pain in his neck and his eyes are burning and his lips are trembling and he excuses himself and goes to the infirmary. The nurse takes one look at him and forces him into a bed, and gives him some glucose, and offers to call his family, his parents to pick him up. Horio refuses. He's going to be fine in the next ten minutes.

The nurse leaves, after making sure he'll be fine. She has to go to the Principal to negotiate a salary raise, and it will take some time, so if Horio goes before she returns, he's to sign the slip she gives him. Horio nods his way through it all.

He sighs as the door closes. Ten minutes later, he's nothing close to fine, so he stays. The door opens again, and it's not the nurse.

Horio is paralyzed with shock the moment he sees Ryoma sauntering over to him with the coldest glare he's seen on his face.

Ryoma climbs onto the bed, straddling Horio's hips. Horio can't move. Ryoma leans down and places a soft kiss on Horio's face. "I don't love you," Ryoma says softly. And then he walks away.

61\. Fairy Tale

When Ryoma hadn't yet turned into the cocky imitation of his father and was still an innocent boy who mispronounced 'tell me mother', Rinko used to love narrating stories to him. She still imagined him as the little girl she'd always wanted, and used to read Cinderella and Snow White and Sleeping Beauty and other stories by the Brothers Grimm to him at night. Ryoma used to listen eagerly, without interrupting his mother. Rinko then lost her little 'girl' to Nanjiro, who put a tennis racquet into his boy's hands and told him to hit the ball when it came to him.

One day Horio comes down with fever and misses a few days of school, so Ryoma stays over. He says it's because Horio's English would fuck up in the five days he wouldn't have a teacher to guide him, but Horio knows Ryoma  _cares_.

Horio turns and tosses in his sleep. He's uncomfortable in the heat and sweaty blankets. His eyes open and suddenly he can't sleep anymore. He sighs, and then freezes as he hears a voice in his ear. Ryoma rolls over beside him and whispers, "Once upon a time, there lived an unhappy young girl. Her mother was dead and her father had married a widow with two daughters who were fair of face but black of heart. Her stepmother didn't like her one little bit..."

Horio listens.

62\. Magic

"It's not my fault!"

"It's not your fault, of course it's not your fault! You're maaagical!" Momo cheers Ryoma on as Ryoma, horrified, watches the spoon floating in front of him bend over backwards.

Ryoma tries to back away, terrified like hell, but Eiji prevents him from taking even one step backwards.

The entire tennis club is celebrating the win at the Nationals, and Ryoma's the guy everyone's looking for. Horio watches from a corner, sees the thin white strings and the not-shine of the rubber. He laughs and shifts his eyes to Ryoma.

63\. Do Not Disturb

As a child, Ryoma had been taught very strictly by Nanjiro, that, when he and Mommy hung that sign on the hotel room door, Ryoma was not supposed to intrude on them as they were playing video games that were too bloody for a child's eyes.

Now that Ryoma had himself started hanging those signs on the doors, he knew better.

He smirks as he closes the door, and turns to Horio.

"How about we play those video games now?"

64\. Multitasking

Horio can really  _talk._  Whether he's walking and playing a video game on his Nintendo, or if he's brushing his teeth and washing Ryoma's back through the gap in the shower curtains, he can chatter on about a completely unrelated topic at the same time for as long as anyone'll listen. Ryoma is bemused about this particular talent of Horio's, because it sometimes interferes when Ryoma would rather let only unintelligible words slip through Horio's lips.

"So, today, I saw Kachiro jogging in the park," Horio starts up as they're riding their bikes around the very same park.

"When?" Ryoma's not at all interested, but today he's decided he's going to let Horio listen to the sound of his own voice.

"Just a minute back," Horio says pleasantly. Ryoma chokes. "Did he see us?"

"Of course not. I have two years of experience in being invisible."

Ryoma wants to roll his eyes, but he's too busy trying to keep the bike handles from jiggling side to side. He's not ridden a bike for a long time, so it's bound to be uncomfortable.

They stop near a sort-of hidden park bench. Horio takes both the bikes and lays them down on their sides beside the bench, and he and Ryoma sit down on the cool stone. "Mada mada dane, Satoshi," Ryoma says, taking his cap off.

And then Horio's talking about the etymology of the phrase, and eating his sandwich, and listening to some obscure song at the same time.

Ryoma tunes him out and spends the evening peacefully.

65\. Horror

They don't really celebrate Halloween much in Japan, but Ryoma dresses up anyway. Horio hates zombie movies.

He spends a lot of time letting Nanako put on the makeup (he can't help but fidget, but Nanako knows a threatening technique or two to keep him still) and then pulls on the clothes stained with "blood".

He ventures out of the house to go to Horio's house, and he hasn't crossed a hundred meters when someone screams and someone else calls the police.

Thankfully, the arresting officer's lived in the US before and knows the joy and satisfaction coming out of scaring a person, so he personally gives Ryoma a ride over to Horio's house and watches, chuckling, as Horio shrieks and slams the door in Ryoma's face.

66\. Traps

Horio is out for revenge. The zombie on his doorstep had given him nightmares for days, and Ryoma wouldn't stop ribbing him about it. His cousin Anko has two years of experience in pranking people, so he calls her. "Anko-chan, I need your help in pranking a friend of mine."

When Ryoma comes to the tennis court the next day, he trips over some wire pulled over the gate. He gets up, suspecting nothing, and then walks again, and sees Eiji running around in a bear costume. Ryoma freezes. He's always had a fear of bears. He tries to run away in the opposite direction, when someone throws a bag over his head and says, "I'm going to break your legs."

Ryoma starts trembling. Suddenly the bag is off, and Ryoma runs into the yard behind the locker room. Horio is standing there, and laughing.

Ryoma wants to kill him. He takes a step forward, onto a suspicious patch of leaves, and falls into a pit.

The scream could be heard till the far tennis court D.

67\. Playing The Melody

Horio had no experience in playing the piano. More than that, he'd wanted to learn the violin because he thought it was so cool, balancing a fragile wooden instrument on your shoulder and making music come from it.

That was five years ago. Before he got into tennis, and forgot all about the violin.

Then, one day, over at Ryoma's house, he sees Ryoma quietly pick up his cousin's violin and start to play something that sounded like 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' to Horio and Horio wants to smile very badly, but Ryoma would think he was laughing.

68\. Hero

Ryoma would die before telling anybody, but he has always wanted to be Batman.

Horio has made it clear that if he had the opportunity to be someone he admires, he would be Wolverine.

Tezuka wanted to be Superman when he was a little child. Not anymore.

Momoshiro wants to be Captain Japan.

Eiji would love to be Spiderman.

Horio and Ryoma one day dress up as Batman and Robin for a costume party in their school, and no one laughs at them.

69\. Annoyance

"Stop annoying me, okay, you need to shut up," Ryoma mumbles, pulling down his cap to hide his face from Horio, who is talking about something random and boring.

Horio becomes quiet quickly, and realizes he's not really going to mean anything to Ryoma, ever.

He slowly bleeds away from Ryoma's side and doesn't say anything to Kachiro or Katsuo about what happened, but a fake smile comes on his face and he starts boring them instead.

Ryoma doesn't even notice.

Then he does, when he doesn't hear Horio talking for three days straight. Horio's just sitting there, watching Eiji and Oishi play a match. Ryoma goes up to him and asks, "What happened to your motormouth?"  
It was apparently the wrong thing to ask, because tears form in Horio's eyes and Horio turns to him and opens his mouth to say something harsh and ragged and hurting but nothing comes out because his lips are trembling too much to make shapes that will show Ryoma what he's done. And then he chokes out, "I'm not a joke."

Ryoma gets the feeling he just broke someone.

70\. 67%

Inui likes his data cold and hard. But then, because he considers everything, he also factors improbability into his calculations, and what once comes out of the calculator is law.

But he can't imagine, he really can't imagine Horio and Ryoma together, even if the calculator says that there's a 67% chance they're dating. 67 isn't 100, but hey. It's more than half.

71\. Obsession

It is unhealthy. Horio should be spending the rest of his life in a mental hospital in solitary confinement and he doesn't know what to do about this, because contrary to what people think, obsessive people don't want to be obsessive, especially when they know they have no chance. He thinks about Ryoma all the time, partly because it's his obsession, and partly because of the effect he knows he has on Ryoma. Ryoma's fucking scared out of his wits because of Horio and the love letters and the relentless calls and the I'm-outside-your-window-open-up thing.

So one day he ends his obsession and Ryoma can leave his window open as much as he wants, but Horio's not going to climb out of the grave and crawl into his room anymore.

72\. Mischief Managed

All Ryoma knows about Harry Potter is that Harry's got a map which is activated by a promise of being up to no good, and which can be de-activated with the confirmation of intended mischief being done. How fucked-up. They didn't even have tennis there. So if Hogwarts existed, Ryoma would've fought tooth and nail against being admitted.

And all Horio knows about Harry Potter is that it outshines just about every fantasy novel in existence in every way possible. He really loves the Marauders' Map and wishes he could have it. Ryoma wouldn't like it if Horio saw his name and footsteps in the bathroom but hey.

73\. I Can't

Too late. Ryoma can only look at Horio and think  _you're too late, I can't._

Horio knows that very well. He purposely waited till the moment was too far gone to confess, and he knows the answer that Ryoma's going to give, but Ryoma knows that Horio needs to hear it.

"I can't," Ryoma says slowly, expressionlessly, not looking at Horio but looking at Horio.

Horio nods, feelings folding up into a square that he banishes into oblivion quickly. He can't cry. He had expected this, for Kami-sama's sake. He says, "Thank you for listening patiently to my confession, Ryoma-kun. I hope you lead a satisfying life in the US." He turns to walk away, and Ryoma just can't let him go like this. He grabs Horio by the crook of his elbow and says, "Don't you want to kiss me?"

"Why should I have memories of you that are going to hurt me when you're gone?"

But Horio wants it, wants to remember him so bad. He involuntarily reaches for Ryoma and Ryoma lets him pull him in close and they breathe in each other's air and the cap's getting in the way so Horio pushes it off and cards his fingers through the sweat-slicked hair with his eyes half-closed, trying to memorize every detail, and Ryoma comes closer so there's not even an inch between their lips and he's waiting for Horio because there's no way he's forcing him and Horio closes his eyes and a tear he never wanted to fall falls and there goes his first (french) kiss.

Ryoma holds him close because this isn't some lovestruck first crush of a girl who saw him and thought he looked cute.

They're welded together in almost every sense, and they're actually kissing in public, where someone could see them. Neither of them cares at this point. Their lives are ending in a few days, anyway.

74\. Are You Challenging Me?

It's their umpteenth fight, and Horio's just tired of this. Tired of this charade, because it was all real a few years ago, the love was real and the touches and kisses were real and every night Ryoma's curled form around him was real but now Ryoma wants his trophies and Horio wants Ryoma to not want his trophies and want Horio for a change.

"You won't even fucking look at me anymore!" Horio shouts, knocking a glass award off the table. Ryoma lets it fall, standing there, watching with narrowed eyes. "Am I a trophy boyfriend or something to you now? Wearing expensive clothes and walking around holding your hand like a model and getting photographed watching you win tennis matches and having my name appear in the newspapers every time I'm seen somewhere at a goddamn charity dinner?"

"Well, kind of, yes." Ryoma shrugs, and even then he's just standing there, immobile.

Horio wants to cry. Where did Ryoma Echizen go? Who was the bastard standing in his clothes and smirking his smirk?

"I'm done with this!" he screams. "I'm done with you now! I'm leaving!"

"Yeah, right. I'll see you soon, so be on the bed. Maybe I'll fuck you and actually call out  _your_  name." Ryoma turns around with a laugh and goes into his study.

Horio breathes in once.

Ryoma comes back out an hour later, expecting to find Horio crying on the sofa. But he finds Horio nowhere. For the first time in a long time he panics; he grabs his cellphone and calls Horio.

He can hear the faint strains of a song playing somewhere, and he follows the sound till he comes upon Horio's cellphone on their bed, ringing with the song that was playing on their first date in some café. He opens the closet to find all of his clothes there. He whirls around like a madman, trying to search for something missing. But the only things that are gone are Horio, and the clothes on Horio's body.

He collapses.

75\. Mirror

It's been a month since Horio walked out on Ryoma, and Ryoma doesn't even blame him anymore. He used to, when his ego prevented him from seeing anything as his own fault, but now, he regrets everything. He hasn't left tennis, but he abandoned all the publicity. The media, of course, has been going crazy about their breakup, discussing every time they'd appeared together, whether Horio Satoshi had ever been seen unhappy. Ryoma doesn't watch TV anymore, doesn't go out anymore.

On the day of the finals of some tournament whose name he doesn't care to remember, he wakes up and takes a leisurely shower. As he steps out, he catches a glimpse of himself in a mirror, and let's just say he's not looking too good.

He sighs, knowing he was to blame for every fucking thing that went wrong. He puts on his favorite t-shirt and his most comfortable pair of shorts, but leaves his cap in his room as he locks the door and gets into the waiting cab.

He feels the familiar thrum of the eager spectators before he sees them; he hears the roars from his fans and his opponent's. As he walks into the court, the deafening roars magnify, and Ryoma looks up, trying to smile. He's not smiled since a month.

Everyone's standing and applauding and cheering, and extending their arms to him and screaming his name. He waves a bit and then the match starts.

Struggling at first, he starts losing to the opponent, 2-3, when he closes his eyes in despair, and Horio comes to his mind.

No matter how much Horio might hate him, he wouldn't want Ryoma to lose, right?

_Right?_

He serves, and then methodically starts shutting his rival down. He wins the match, 6-3, and falls to his knees, continuing the tradition of every winning tennis player. He prays, prays for Horio to return to him and then gets up, walking over to the rival to share a bitter smile and a solid handshake, and then the same with the umpire. He throws his towel into the roaring crowd, and starts signing autographs. After some time, he walks back to the court, because he's not allowed to go yet, he's got to accept the trophy. Ryoma wants to go back to his home and curl up on Horio's side of the bed and cry like a newborn baby.

He's made to step out onto the podium and he gets the huge silver trophy and he smiles for the hungry cameras, and then looks towards the spectators.

Everyone's moving, onto the court, off the benches, surrounding the winner, and then there's no one on the benches in a few minutes, save for one person.

Immobile, Ryoma and Horio stare at each other in a mirror-like repeat of his Junior High Nationals win.

Then Horio gets down from the stands and comes over to Ryoma and kisses him. "Congratulations." Ryoma wants to say sorry but there's no words coming out of his mouth.

They go home together.


	4. Chapter 4

76\. Broken Pieces

So Ryoma is in America, and Horio is in Japan. He regrets ever confessing to Ryoma (because if he had to, he should've done it when they first met, but Horio had always wanted to know the value of time) but he did. They had said goodbye and seen each other in person for the last time, and at that moment, everyone present to say goodbye to the tennis prodigy had known who they were to each other and what they'd done, and they averted their eyes from Horio's heartbroken face because they couldn't bear to see the raw pain in his eyes.

Horio regrets confessing, he regrets the kissing, because what he's done's left them both shattered, especially Ryoma.

77\. Test

_What's the square root of 169?_

Horio can't believe the simplicity of the question and proudly writes the answer down.  _13._ There. He looks at the next question, and the answer pops into his head. Horio writes it down, too. A condescending smile grows on his face. He's going to fucking  _ace_  this test.

Then he comes across the question of doom, and he freezes, the smile vanishing.

He waits a bit. The answer doesn't magically write itself down on the paper. He closes his eyes in consternation. Pride always comes before a fall. Why didn't he pay heed to that? He sighs a bit and looks around the class.  _Someone please tell me the answer._

His eyes meet those of the foreigner, and he blushes a bit, because it was only yesterday that he'd gotten the note telling him to stop staring. He doesn't know whether to ask the foreigner the question or not, but Echizen makes the decision for him, ducking his face back into his paper.

Horio is going to fail. He knows it.

Then a piece of paper lands on his desk, and miraculously the teacher doesn't notice. He opens it to find the question of doom's number, and its answer. Along with the words  _you're welcome_.

78\. Drink

Horio doesn't know what a drinking game is. Ryoma, because he hangs out with Momoshiro, knows what it is only too well.

The first drinking game that Ryoma's been involved in after the Nationals is with the entire tennis club, but it's only sodas, because some of them (all of them) were underage, and when Ryoma went with Momo alone, they'd always had Red Bull. Ryoma used to miss Ponta, but he's got it now.

Everyone's in the mood to celebrate, because they upstaged Rikkaidai, and so they sit down to watch a movie - Twilight.

Ryoma is not in the mood for lovey-dovey vampires. He gets up to leave, but Horio pulls him back down, making sad eyes, which unfortunately work, because Karupin's eyes are somewhat the same color.

Momo gets up and announces the rules. "Every time the vampire speaks, one shot! Every time the dull girl narrates through a part, three shots! A road scene, one shot!  _You are the world to me, I love you, he loves me, I love him,_ blah blah blah, se- _ven_  shots!" He continues in the same strain and everyone's listening with big smiles on their face but they're all somehow fake because everyone still misses Tezuka like a phantom arm. They talked to him on the phone and sent him a video of them hoisting the massive trophy but they're all hoping Tezuka doesn't see the tears in their eyes because well, it was  _Tezuka_  who should've raised that Nationals trophy to the world.

The movie begins, and everyone takes three shots. And then one shot.

Ryoma loves every moment of the movie, because he takes so many shots of Ponta he's feels he's going to die.

Horio watches Ryoma's throat swallow all through the film. He doesn't drink, but no one notices except Ryoma, who leans over to kiss him, tasting of grape Ponta so much that Horio doesn't need to take any shots.

79\. Starvation

The week that Ryoma was seriously ill, he wasn't able to eat anything. Anything he swallowed came back up and he vomited it out violently into a bedpan. IV wasn't working either. Nanjiro was worried about his son for the first time in years, and he stayed by Ryoma's side all through the day, leaving only to toll the bell of the temple.

There were deep purple circles under Ryoma's eyes, and his lips were slowly turning blue, and the doctors were saying he was going to be fine, but was he?

Then he started improving as the week wore on, and he started keeping liquids down, and then one day he ate a whole lunch and nothing untoward happened. Everyone was relieved, and could go back to their schedules, because even if no one admitted it out loud, Ryoma was an integral part of all their lives.

The day that Ryoma was first allowed to go to school, he specifically sought out Horio (not just because Horio would be keeping him company the whole day; he wasn't allowed to play tennis yet, and he hated it) and said, "I missed you."

"I was there every day," Horio replies, a bit confused.

Then Ryoma steps forward, and cups Horio's face in his hands tenderly and kisses him like a thirsty man in the desert finding an oasis. "I missed you a lot."

80\. Words

The first time he saw Ryoma, Horio was speechless.

The next few times he managed to talk about the things he loves.

Then he fell  _in_ love, and he was speechless again.

On Ryoma's birthday he gives Ryoma nothing except a simple card saying  _I don't have words to describe how being with you feels, even though you know (and you keep telling me) I talk too much._

Ryoma writes a card to him, too, and it says  _Let's hope you don't start writing too much, because I don't have the time to sift through the junk that's your handwriting._ _I love you, too. Stop being so sappy._

81\. Pen And Paper

Horio and Ryoma both use laptops to stay in touch after Ryoma moves (they somehow become really good friends, but Horio knows he'll never tell Ryoma about his feelings) but one day Horio's laptop dies on him, and cuts short a conversation with Ryoma that was really important, because Ryoma was telling Horio about the girls in his school, and he had wanted to know because, well, of his reasons.

So he writes Ryoma a letter; it's not even a long one, damn it, and he spends too much just to send one line of writing over the Pacific ocean. Ryoma replies in the same paper, different envelope;

_To Ryoma: Keep telling me about those girls in your schools. My laptop died and I'll email you after I get my mom to buy me a new one. Horio._

_To Horio: They won't be interested in you. Ryoma._

_To Ryoma: That's not why I'm asking. Horio._

_To Horio: They won't be interested in me, either, because I'm taken. There's this really cool girl who plays tennis as well as I do, and she and I went on our first date the day I got your letter. Ryoma._

Horio gives up, and doesn't reply. He gets his new laptop, but pretends not to remember Ryoma's email address. He should've let sleeping dogs lie.

82\. Can You Hear Me?

"What?"

"I said, why didn't you reply to the letter?"

Horio can hear Ryoma-from-another-continent perfectly well. "What? I didn't catch that. Repeat it, there's too much static on my end," he says anyway.

"Why didn't you reply to my emails?"

Horio finds no excuse to get past this, and says, "What's the name of your girlfriend?"

"What?"

"The name of your girlfriend."

"Emma."

Pretty name. Horio wants to hang up, but that would sever their friendship beyond repair. "Nice name," he says.

"Why didn't you reply to my letter?"

"Too much pocket money was being used," Horio says, looking at his little sister's piggy bank on the table.

"Oh. My emails?"

Horio says nothing.

"Do you want to talk to her?" And there - Ryoma crosses the line there, and Horio says, "No, thanks, I've got to go set the table for dinner, now." It's five in the evening.

"But in Japan it's five in the-"

Horio hangs up with tears in his eyes, and nothing matters anymore.

83\. Heal

He's going to get over Ryoma someday. Just not this day, or the one after it, or the one after  _that_.

There's no bandages for a broken heart, but Horio would've done anything, spent any amount of money on anything that would get him over Ryoma.

His chance comes in the form of Tomoka, who asks him out, but bluntly says it's just to piss off some other boy, do you have a problem with me using you.

"Of course not. I'm going to be using you in return, too."

They're both going to hell, and Horio doesn't see how this will heal him, but he goes with it.

"I have a girlfriend, too," Horio says casually to Ryoma.

"Good for you." Ryoma is clipped, curt, and Horio thinks he just came back from a date with his lovely Emma.

"Yeah. It's Tomoka."

"Tomoka. Who was my number one fangirl?"

"You remember that?"

"And I remember Sakuno, too." Ryoma sounds like he's trying to provoke Horio, and Horio knows that, but he still rises to the bait.

"She's none of your business anymore," Horio snaps into the phone. "You've got your Emma, don't think about all the heartbroken people you left in Japan."

Ryoma apparently gets that he just doesn't mean Tomoka and Sakuno or the rest of those fangirls.

_He's going to hell, damn it._

84\. Out Cold

The first time Horio and Ryoma get into a fight, Ryoma gets angered beyond his limits of tolerance. He screams, "You're just a fucking loser, okay,  _Satoshi,_  you don't even know how to fucking play the fucking sport and a stupid normal serve is enough to fucking knock you out you  _son of a bitch_ -" he trails off, too angry to even speak now, and Horio looks like his world ended in front of him.

The fight was just about goddamn Ponta and Horio's tennis racquets. How did it get so out of hand?

Horio says, "I'm sorry, then, Ryoma."

Then he passes out, and wakes up a day later to find Ryoma in tears, standing beside his bed in the hospital. "I'm sorry. I took it further," he sobs, and everything is right in Horio's world.

85\. Spiral

He's deteriorating. He's getting more and more addicted, and no one knows anything.

He likes taking cocaine up the nostril and losing himself for a while before he has to come back down to reality and live an empty life without his love.

But Horio walked out of Ryoma's life a long time ago, and while Ryoma accepts each pinprick of blame, Horio's not going to come back. Ever.

_Tennis legend Echizen Ryoma dies of drug overdose. Funeral goes by incomplete without lover Horio Satoshi._

86\. Seeing Red

Ryoma's never been jealous before, so he doesn't know how to handle himself when he does become jealous.

He coldly ignores Horio for a while before trying to provoke him using other people, and then when Horio looks like a kicked puppy there's a cold satisfaction in his eyes. But then it all turns into a payback chain game, and Ryoma and Horio break in every way possible except the literal.

Apologies don't work anymore, and they break  _apart,_  too.

87\. Food

Ryoma can be a glutton when he wants to be. He likes Japanese food over American, and maybe that's why he doesn't like eating in his own house, because Rinko makes Japanese food quite well, but it's Horio's mom that makes the most exquisite yellowtail teriyaki.

So on Ryoma's birthday Horio comes over with a big carton of Ryoma's favorite food items, and watches while Ryoma devours it all in a seriously messy manner (but he's not a lady, so who cares) and then says, "I 'oveyou Shatoshi," with a full mouth and sparkling eyes, and maybe giving up his pocket money for the next two months just so his mother would make all this was worth it.

88\. Pain

When Horio was ten, he came in the way of a speeding bicycle and was thrown five feet away because of the impact. His skin got deeply cut and wounded at his calves, elbows, and the back of his shoulders. Years later the scars still hurt like hell, and when Ryoma's hugging Horio, he lightly runs his fingers over the scars every time, making sure his fingers don't press down too much, praying that they heal and Horio can sleep and walk around and  _do_  stuff comfortably.

Then one day Horio comes and embraces Ryoma tightly and says, "They don't hurt anymore," and Ryoma wants to cry with happiness. He compensates by hugging him just as tightly, and when all Horio does is come impossibly closer and hug him impossibly tighter, Ryoma has the world at his feet.

89\. Through The Fire

He's seen people walking on hot coals and coming out unscathed, without a single burn on their soles or heels. He's seen dogs jump through circles of fire just for entertainment, but that's all on TV. So when there's a circus in town, Horio wants to go really bad. His mom won't let him go alone, though. He doesn't have any good friends other than Kachiro and Katsuo, and they're both busy, so he asks people from the tennis club, "Do you want to go to the circus with me? Please?"

Momo really wants to go, but his sister's coming from Sapporo and she hasn't come over in a while, so Momo can't get out of the house till she leaves. Eiji has plans with Oishi, but he would've gone, too. He's really sorry. Horio doesn't bother asking the rest of the regulars. Most of the second years are bastards, so he asks just one of them timidly but he's not going either, so he reluctantly gives up on his dream of seeing dogs jumping through rings of fire in front of his eyes.

The day of the last show, Horio wants to curl up and just  _cry_  but he's not that much of a baby, so he switches on the TV, thinking maybe the live broadcast will placate him. It won't. The show starts in an hour, and Horio sits there, disappointed in the world.

The door knocks, and Horio goes to get it. He doesn't look through the peephole, it's highly unlikely a serial killer would show up at six-thirty in the evening, so he just opens the door and finds Ryoma standing there, wearing his generic shorts and t-shirt and that Fila cap of his.

Horio gapes at Ryoma, who looks like he regrets ever coming. "Wh-what do you want?" Horio manages to speak. He isn't even on good talking terms with this guy, and said guy is on his doorstep.

"Go wear something nice, we have to be at the circus by seven, or else they won't let us in," Ryoma mumbles, hiding under his cap. Horio's pretty sure he hadn't asked Ryoma, so he asks, "But how do you know I wanted to go?"

Ryoma doesn't want to answer it, but he does. "I saw everyone turning you down, and you looked like you really wanted to go, and I had nothing to do because my old man won't play tennis with me tonight, so... we're getting late, by the way. Mada mada dane."

Horio just gives Ryoma a blinding smile and rushes up to change. He comes back down in record time, tells his mother he and a friend are going, and then they're out of the house, and walking on the footpath toward the circus, whose music is being heard a mile away.

He has the time of his life there, and it's a packed audience, no space to even move a step, so they're not even sitting, and there's noise and music and drums and acrobats and confetti and ringmasters and fire everywhere and Horio finally gets to see what he always wanted to see, and he's the happiest man in the  _world_. He sits back in his seat, satisfied with his life now, and Ryoma, who's looked on through it all, the only one this bored in the whole crowd, turns to him. "Liked it?"

"Loved it. Thank you, Echizen-kun." Horio can die in peace now. He gives the ceiling a lazy smile, and then feels a hot hand on his arm and another just below his jaw and he turns and there's fiery lips on his, moving with his and  _Ryoma fucking Echizen_  who doesn't give him the time of day is kissing him openly in front of everydamnbody and Horio feels like he was the one who just jumped through the ring of fire with exhilaration. There's sounds coming from both of them that Horio's only heard in that video he accidentally saw on the Internet. Ryoma's tongue licks at his and Horio feels weak all over, even though he had his lunch today, so he wraps his hot arms around Ryoma, too, trying to stay standing. People who see them don't care.

"Ryoma's fine, and just so you know, this was our first date, and I'm your boyfriend now," Ryoma smirks as he pulls away to watch the lion obeying the ringmaster, and Horio falls in love.

90\. Triangle

Ryoma's dealt with a love triangle before. Not personally, it was just Nanako and two guys who "loved" her, but she got rid of any suitors efficiently by introducing them to the people she lives with (they got spooked away by Nanjiro).

When it happens to him personally, he thinks of the trauma Nanako might have gone through.

Sakuno's a cute girl, but it's just a stupid crush, because girls like arrogant boys with big egos, who trash them and then treat them tenderly. Ryoma's just arrogant about his tennis, but he doesn't have an ego and he's never even talked to a girl before so he has no idea how to trash one. So why does Sakuno love him anyway? Does she even  _love_ him?

Horio won't tell him he loves him, but he loves him, and it hurts Ryoma inside to see Horio talking nicely to Sakuno, who dissed him in public and screamed at him just for being in love with a guy she thinks should be  _hers._ It's public knowledge, that these two like Ryoma, but while Sakuno came up and confessed to him, Horio just avoids his eyes and walks away.

In the end, he chooses Sakuno, because she's fighting for him, and Horio just smiles and gives up with the words, "I loved you more than her, but I can't fight for you, because I don't know how I could compete against  _her_."

91\. Drowning

Horio doesn't know how to swim. It was a bad idea, his family going to a fucking resort near the fucking beach.

The lifeguard has to dive in to save him in the first few minutes that Horio goes into the water, and so he stays in his room for the rest of the week.

When they get back and the story circulates through the tennis club, people don't make much fun of Horio. Not many of them know how to swim, either. The story gets to Ryoma too, who, in a moment of wild heartbeats and adrenaline, thinks he almost lost the most talkative person in the world, and Horio notices the flare of his eyes as he says it, and smiles at Ryoma. "I'm alive, Echizen-kun. I'm going to keep boring you for the next two years, at least."

92\. All That I Have

The world abandons Horio, but Ryoma kicks at the world and says, "Fuck it. You have me. Don't give up, and you're going to become a better tennis player than me and my old man combined, so don't give up."

"I'm a paraplegic, Ryoma, I'm can't even stand up." The accident two months back, where Horio lost his baby sister and his father and the use of his legs, left him unable to believe in any good thing in the world.

Ryoma turns to Horio with tears in his eyes, and says, "You're all that I have left. You remind me of the person I should be. Don't give up on yourself, or I'll  _die._ "

Horio shakes his head softly. "OK," he sighs. "I'll try."

He's given up, inwardly, but he can't bear the thought of Ryoma breaking because of him.

93\. Give Up

Sakuno tells Horio to give up. "He's mine, now," she hisses at him in class. "You're not allowed to even look at him, okay, you jerk?"

"How the fuck am I a jerk?" Horio asks her. "You, you're the bitch. You don't even love him."

"I do, I love him a lot!" Sakuno seems disgusted Horio would even doubt her love for Ryoma, and Horio can only wonder if this is how Sakuno behaves around  _Ryoma._

"No, you don't. You just want to be with the most popular guy in our grade."

Sakuno hesitates, with a soft "that's not true," and Horio goes back to his homework with a snort that tells Sakuno he clearly doesn't believe her. A minute later, Sakuno says, "Do you really love him?"

"More than you ever could."

"How long?"

"Seven months." Horio doesn't want to say all this, but it's coming out like his mouth was a broken dam and the words were a river. Sakuno seems shocked. "You kept it hidden this long?"

"Yes."

Sakuno doesn't say anything, but then she does, and asks, "Why didn't you fight for him?"

"Because if you look at it properly, then Ryoma should be with a girl, and you  _love_  him, don't you, and I suppose you're halfway pretty, and compared to me you're absolutely beautiful, so you're perfect for each other. I can't compare with that."

"So you'll give up?"

"Bitch, I gave up the minute he gave you a can of Ponta. Now leave me alone." Horio finally starts writing the essay due next period, and he's embittered, now, and he doesn't care. Sakuno sighs, and then turns back as a friend calls her. She freezes and a loud gasp escapes her mouth, and Horio looks up, follows her gaze and turns around to see Ryoma sitting behind him, still with a horrified look at Horio. "You love me this much?" he asks.

Horio wants to die, but instead he says, "Yes," and turns back to the front.

94\. Last Hope

Ryoma's last hope (a) of ever staying back in Japan is the tennis club, and last hope (b) is Horio. His parents don't really want to go back to the US either, but Nanjiro wants the very best for his son, and now that's he's had inspiration from his father's old school, you know, let the boy go back where he came from and just show the world his miracles.

But Horio comes to their house one day and makes an impassioned plea about how he, personally,  _needs_  Ryoma to stay because the friendship they have (which isn't really even friendship, it's more) means a lot to him and maybe Ryoma wants to stay, too?

Rinko persuades Nanjiro to stay, and so they stay, and so Ryoma can have a few more years of going to the lake and holding hands with and kissing the person who means the most to him.

95\. Advertisement

As a project in class, groups of two had to make a poster advertising a certain product, that could either be imaginary or real, with catchy slogans and pictures and stuff. The people who made the best posters would get free coupons to the carnival.

Horio would really love to go to the carnival for a second date. Ryoma doesn't know why their dates have to be at places where there's bearded women and midgets and mirrors that show you distended reflections, but he says nothing, planning to steal and give the coupons to Nanako if they win, anyway.

Ryoma wants to advertise Ponta. They have a small fight over that, because Horio wants to advertise cellphones. Ryoma scoffs at that, and tells Horio to look around. Many people are advertising Mitsubishi and Toshiba and Sharp, so Horio gives up. "But we're not going to advertise Ponta."

They have another small fight over that. Meanwhile, across the room, the teacher shoots down two boys' idea of advertising an escort company.

They settle on finally advertising tennis racquets. They lose. Ryoma sighs in relief. But Horio looks heartbroken, so Ryoma lets him buy tickets and take him to the carnival, anyway.

96\. In The Storm

Ryoma loves thunderstorms. He likes the crack of thunder and the flash of lightning and the pattering rain on his window. Whenever one hits, he sits and watches it till it fades away.

The tennis regulars are at a resort, challenged by some school to a tourney, when a thunderstorm strikes at night, and Ryoma is very happy because he can calm down now.

He's watching it, while his roommate, Momo is snoring away, when he gets an email. It's Horio, and he's asking whether he's looking at the thunderstorm or not. He replies in the affirmative. He gets another reply from Horio:

_I'm watching a thunderstorm, too, for the first time, and it's reminding me of you._

Ryoma smirks and replies,  _I love you._

Horio sends another email before going offline:  _I'm going to sleep, now. I love you too. I hope you're Singles 1._ And Ryoma shuts the phone, leans his head against the window pane and stares at the sky.

97\. Safety First

After what happened out at sea, Ryoma won't let Horio even put a foot inside a swimming pool without a buoy.

Horio thanks him for it, and even though Ryoma can swim like an Olympian athlete, he wears a buoy too, and they both paddle around in the pool like little children, laughing madly, occasionally kissing wetly.

And everyone who's watching them feels like a piece of their hearts was just taken by the two boys in Bermuda shorts and buoys that look like Mickey Mouse with a hole where his nose should be.

98\. Puzzle

Sudoku came from Japan, and yet Ryoma fumbles with the numbers, trying to put them where they should be. At last he gives up and starts randomly filling out his cellphone number in the boxes. Horio catches the trick and starts laughing at him.

"Mada mada dane," Ryoma mumbles. "You solve the puzzle, then."

Horio shows him. He solved it ten minutes back.

Ryoma rubs out his, and starts copying. "Thanks," he drawls when he's done.

"I have two years of experience in this, Echizen-kun, you should know."

Ryoma ignores him and gives the paper to the teacher, who congratulates him on filling it up so fast.

99\. Solitude

Ryoma loves being alone. He doesn't have to indulge in brainless conversations, and pretend to be somebody he's not, just to make others comfortable. So it's really nice when his family goes out in a while, leaving him alone in the house, so he can watch Nepuri and cuddle his cat and practise his serves.

But Horio hates being alone. It makes him think about who he really is, and what he finds out isn't very appealing, because he knows all he can do is talk the talk, because he can't walk the walk. So he needs constant company, someone to just speak to, so that he doesn't have time to think about the truth about himself.

Ryoma and Horio both love being alone together.

100\. Relaxation

The beach is calm and empty in the evening, and Ryoma thinks back on his years as he sinks his toes in the sand like he used to when he was younger. He left the tennis world stunned by achieving landmarks no one dared cross, created a whole new chapter for himself in the books of time, and made his old man proud by beating him in an intense tennis match. The latter particularly pleases him, because the minute before Nanjiro died, he told his son he loved him.

Horio comes and sits beside him, and they both sip tea together.

"Are you happy?" Ryoma asks him.

Horio nods. "Couldn't be happier."

Ryoma says, "I'll die in peace, then."

"Shut up, old man."

"Mada mada dane."

They close their eyes against the piercing-yet-soft rays of the sunset and realize they've gotten all they wanted in the world, and maybe that's enough.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you like this? Did I even slightly change your mind about this pair?


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